Iowa AG warns consumers about scammers using office's logo

DES MOINES, Iowa (Legal Newsline) -- Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller warned consumers Tuesday about an unsolicited email purportedly sent from his office notifying recipients that they received a credit card with a large balance.

Miller's Consumer Protection Division received multiple complaints about emails received from departmentIowa@usa.com about an ATM MasterCard alert.

The email displays an Iowa Attorney General's Office logo at the top and lists Miller's name at the bottom. The email claims that recipients received a MasterCard with a $980,000 credit from a Nigerian lottery or inheritance.

"This is a phishing scam, likely from Nigeria, where someone is using our office logo to help trick people into thinking that this is legitimate," Miller said in a statement. "Obviously this is an email that our office would never send, and most people know that official state of Iowa emails come from a 'dot gov' domain."

The email is full of grammatical errors and says that the recipient must reply to it with a name, address, cell phone number and a copy of their identification prior to receiving the card.

Miller urged recipients to delete the email and not respond to the sender.

The attorney general said recipients wishing to report the scam can do so with the Internet Crime Complaint Center, which is jointly operated by the National White Collar Crime Center and the FBI.

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